SOUTH KOREA
Hot nights break record
A streak of hot tropical nights broke a century-old weather record, official data released yesterday showed, as the peninsula bakes in a prolonged heat wave. Overnight temperatures in Seoul sizzled above 25°C for 22 consecutive days last month, officials said, marking the longest such streak for the month since modern weather records began in October 1907. The capital was also on track to record its hottest July night in history on Wednesday, with the lowest temperature of the day reaching 29.3°C.
Photo: Reuters
MYANMAR
Junta ends state of emergency
The junta yesterday ended its state of emergency, ramping up plans for a December election that opposition groups pledged to boycott and monitors said would be used to consolidate the military’s power. The military declared a state of emergency in February 2021 as it deposed the civilian government of democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi, sparking a many-sided civil war that has claimed thousands of lives. Opposition groups including ex-lawmakers ousted in the coup have pledged to snub the poll, which a UN expert in June dismissed as “a fraud” designed to legitimize the military’s continuing rule.
UNITED STATES
City official set on fire
A city councilman in Danville, Virginia, was seriously injured on Wednesday when a man stormed into his office at a local magazine, doused him in gasoline and set him on fire — an attack that authorities said was rooted in a personal dispute, not politics. Lee Vogler, 38, who has served on the Danville City Council for more than a decade, was taken by medical helicopter to a burn unit in North Carolina after the attack. Police said the assailant, 29-year-old Shotsie Michael Buck Hayes, forced his way into Vogler’s office at Showcase Magazine, confronted him, then chased him outside and set him ablaze. Hayes was arrested at the scene on charges of attempted first-degree murder and aggravated malicious wounding.
PAKISTAN
Climber confirmed dead
Two-time Olympic biathlon gold medalist Laura Dahlmeier of Germany was confirmed dead aged 31 on Wednesday after being hit by falling rocks on a mountain. The dangerous nature of the site made rescue efforts “impossible,” her management company reported in a statement that confirmed her death. “This is an enormous shock. Laura will always remain in my heart,” Dahlmeier’s friend and rival, Czech champion Gabriela Soukalova, wrote on social media. The accident happened around midday on Monday at an altitude of 5,700m on Laila Peak in the Karakoram range, a statement from Dahlmeier’s team said. Her climbing partner was able to sound the alarm after reaching safety, but no one was able to reach her due to conditions that made a helicopter rescue impossible, a local official said.
FRANCE
Michael Jackson sock sold
A single glittery sock that late pop superstar Michael Jackson wore during a concert in France in the 1990s sold for more than US$8,000 on Wednesday, an auctioneer said. A technician found the used sock discarded near Jackson’s dressing room after the concert in the southern city of Nimes in July 1997, auctioneer Aurore Illy said. Decades later, the off-white item of clothing is covered in stains, and the rhinestones adorning it have yellowed with age, in a picture posted online. “It really is an exceptional object — even a cult one for Michael Jackson fans,” Illy said.
POLITICAL PATRIARCHS: Recent clashes between Thailand and Cambodia are driven by an escalating feud between rival political families, analysts say The dispute over Thailand and Cambodia’s contested border, which dates back more than a century to disagreements over colonial-era maps, has broken into conflict before. However, the most recent clashes, which erupted on Thursday, have been fueled by another factor: a bitter feud between two powerful political patriarchs. Cambodian Senate President and former prime minister Hun Sen, 72, and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, 76, were once such close friends that they reportedly called one another brothers. Hun Sen has, over the years, supported Thaksin’s family during their long-running power struggle with Thailand’s military. Thaksin and his sister Yingluck stayed
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
‘ARBITRARY’ CASE: Former DR Congo president Joseph Kabila has maintained his innocence and called the country’s courts an instrument of oppression Former Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) president Joseph Kabila went on trial in absentia on Friday on charges including treason over alleged support for Rwanda-backed militants, an AFP reporter at the court said. Kabila, who has lived outside the DR Congo for two years, stands accused at a military court of plotting to overthrow the government of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi — a charge that could yield a death sentence. He also faces charges including homicide, torture and rape linked to the anti-government force M23, the charge sheet said. Other charges include “taking part in an insurrection movement,” “crime against the
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